Roger Fingas
Tidal, a music streaming service recently bought by rapper Jay-Z, is due to relaunch later today and will allegedly be backed by artist exclusives that could threaten Apple's planned rebranding of Beats Music.
Aat a press conference scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern, Jay-Z is expected to only reveal the new incarnation of Tidal but announce "first window" exclusives from artists like Daft Punk, Madonna, and Kanye West, according to TechCrunch. The music should eventually come to rival services such as Beats and Spotify, just at a later date.
Jay-Z, also known as Shawn Carter, is best known as a musician, but his company, Roc Nation, handles a variety of services for musicians including publishing and management. The pull of Carter's reputation and his Roc Nation connections may also be helped by more artist-friendly terms.
Monday's report said that Tidal may be paying musicians up to twice as much as competing options. Musicians have complained that services like Spotify and Pandora pay too little in comparison to downloads, and frequently aren't enough to sustain a career without regular touring and other sources of income.
Tidal presently offers standard and high-quality streaming at costs of $10 or $20 per month, respectively. Earlier this month, Carter successfully bid $54 million to take over the service.
Apple is believed to be rebranding Beats Music under the watch of Nine Inch Nails frontman and Beats executive Trent Reznor. The new service may debut alongside an app for iOS 8.4, incorporating a redesigned interface and a new name.
Like Tidal, though, Apple is reportedly trying to secure content exclusives, and the company could run into trouble if a number of artists have already signed deals with other parties.
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33 Comments
Apple has the clout and brand cachet. And as far as I'm concerned he can keep Kanye and Madonna, I wouldn't want their crap on my streaming service (Not necessarily a fan of Daft Punk but I don't have anything against them either).
Jay-Z has already done deals with Samsung. Something tells me that's his hidden exit strategy for this service.
Unless they secured exclusives from all artists sure it'll hurt Beats.. There are plenty of artists out there. I'm sure Beats/Apple has exclusives already signed or planned. Plus having the kind money Apple has and music industry connected people like Iovine and Dre I think gives them more advantage in securing more than deals.
It's all marketing hype. It's just 16-bit CD quality audio on TIDAL. Apple needs to go 24-bit with Beats. Qobuz already been doing this for ages.
Funny how after Jay-Z and that failed union with Samsung, Beyonce went and did an exclusive on iTunes and absolutely crushed Jay-Z for sales/downloads.
She knows where the money is.